Re Cap: Dj Uncle Ralph McDaniels ( honoring him for his outstanding contribution to the birthing of Hip Hop)

I am going to reminisce here:

I am gonna tell ya why he is important to me, to Hip Hop, the Urban community and to creativity. Being Born and raised in Harlem, I grew up viewing that drugs, alcohol was a common thing/activity that my neighbors and my neighborhood often do. That activity lead to also many crimes around the city, and has affected many families from venturing out at certain times of the day and or night.

I remember also my personal family crisis, and also coping with it through art. I often STAYED at home and drew on sketchbook ( black books) to pass the time before I go back to school again the next day. ( yeah I didn’t have a life). But at that time it didn’t bother me. I remember also during these street wars, and HOT times where safety was a major issue, that my brothers and I often STAYED together in a room. Sure our black and white color tv didn’t look that good, but it did its job. Sure our home was cold and there no heat, but were wore coats to sleep, Hey you gotta do what you gotta do ...

Mentioning the above experience with siblings lead us to "congregate" with one another, and explore what we have learned from school or the streets. These get together (as family must often do), we cherish them a lot to the point that we looked forward in reconnecting every day. One spring afternoon, we had a hold of an original black book from a dear friend, this book was crazy cool and had experienced graf writers all up on it. We were all in the art buzz to start mimicking and teach ourselves what they have learned from this book, that we began immediately . This let us to turn that darn tv on. I am not sure who turned on the tv, but I remember the them song, and VIDEO MUSIC BOX being on. " WOOOW, did you hear that beat?! who’s that on the Mic.? Biz Marc and Slick Rick... a few that sprouted here and there in this episode?

I didn’t know them , but how they did their thang was NICE. My brothers and I can stay to this day, how we can never forget how influential turning that TV was for us, because from there on, we were all hooked, and we were always together creating art on the floor our bedroom that we eventually made into a studio. Thank You Dj Uncle Ralph McDaniels for pushing forward your vison to capture what many youth in the streets where willing to express, at the time where MTV were not allowing African American music in their program. Thank you Angela McKenzie for welcoming me and my brother Tomas in his Tribute show at Bowery Poetry Club! Love ya and oh what a feeling to finally meet a great inspiration.

Photos taken by Victoria Holt!

for more photos check out her facebook link and as well Joann Gomez link :

http://musiclookslikethis.smugmug.com/Music-Photography/Uncle-Ralph/11368145_ZQcp5#798551458_rCCLL